Miles: SEC champ deserves BCS title chance

Regardless of what happens in the coming weeks, LSU’s Les Miles thinks the Southeastern Conference champion should be in the
BCS national championship game.

Then again, Miles hasn’t totally given up on the notion that that team could be his own Tigers — even though it would take
the monumental upset of Auburn over Alabama in two weeks for LSU to even reach the SEC title game.

“I think there’s still a chance, a very outside chance, that we end up as the Western (Division) rep in that (SEC) championship
game,” Miles said Monday. “We’ll certainly play for that until we know.”

The Tigers (8-2, 4-2 SEC) host Ole Miss (5-5, 2-4) Saturday, then travel to play Arkansas the following Friday. Their regular
season will end a day before Auburn gets a shot at the upset of the year.

So, all LSU can do is play its best as heavy favorites in the final two games and hope for the best.

Which is about where the SEC, still reverberating from Texas A&M’s upset of previous No. 1 Alabama, stands as a whole.

The conference has six of the top nine teams in the latest BCS rankings, but none in the top two — currently Kansas State
and Oregon — which is all that matters toward reaching the BCS title game.

Notre Dame is also unbeaten and third in the rankings, with Alabama the highest ranked SEC team at No. 4.

Despite the unprecedented glut in the rankings, without some help, it would appear the SEC won’t get the chance to add to
its streak of six straight national championships.

That would irk Miles.

“The champion of this league should well have the opportunity to play in that national championship game until somebody proves
that the winner of this league is not the nation’s best,” he said.

“I’d still like to think that the conference champion might well have the opportunity.”

It would likely take at least two of the top three losing games in the final weeks of the season.

If it was two years from now, when college football will go to a four-team playoff for the 2014 season, the league might not
be sweating so much.

“If there was a four-team playoff this year,” Miles said, “We might all make it. It’s on the cusp.

“This conference, there are a number of very skillful teams and therefore receive strong national rankings and we play all
of them — everybody in this league plays a difficult schedule.”

They don’t actually play all of the
conference members, although LSU just completed a five-game streak in
which the Tigers
played four of that SEC six pack in the BCS top nine. And
Mississippi State, which LSU beat 37-17 Saturday, is still ranked
No. 25 in the Harris poll despite its third straight conference
loss.

“I think strength of schedule certainly makes a difference,” Miles said. “There are some teams that have not played the style
of schedule that is played week in and week out in this conference.

“I think the team that stands on the podium with the SEC championship trophy should well get great consideration to play in
that (BCS championship) game.”